


Victory

by orchidbreezefc



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: POV Amami Rantaro, Pre-Canon, Pre-Game Amami Rantaro, Previous Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 06:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14467197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchidbreezefc/pseuds/orchidbreezefc
Summary: Amami always thought he was too levelheaded to kill anyone. Or maybe that's just a lie he told himself. Either way, he was wrong.





	Victory

**Author's Note:**

> So, I think I'm on a different wavelength re: Amami canon than everybody else. I already had the foundation for this down when I started looking around and seeing that some of y'all have a very different concept of what happened in the past killing game(s) than what I came up with. Not sure how much of that is translation differences vs. interpretation differences vs. me literally misunderstanding canon.
> 
> Therefore, depending on that balance, this fic could be anywhere from an expansion on canon to a slapdash reinterpretation of the facts to straight up AU territory. I hope that one way or another y'all enjoy my vision of what exactly may have gone down in Amami's backstory.

You never really thought of yourself as the type of person who would be capable of killing someone in any situation. You wouldn’t have thought so even if you had known you would be in a killing game at all. You were a nice guy, too nice even. It came of having twelve sisters: you knew how to be levelheaded and compromise. You prided yourself on being the type of laid-back guy people could be comfortable around, even at the price of having to let things go when maybe it would have been better to stand up for yourself. 

Even in the killing game, you were like that. Maybe being nice was the way to go, you figured. You would be too well-loved to be a target, and too calm and reasoned to ever kill anyone yourself and be executed for it. Sure, it was painful and terrifying to watch people fall away one by one, but that’s what you were: the calm eye of the storm, forcing yourself to maintain your peace while around you everyone else tore each other apart.

And tear each other apart they did. You’d say it was impossible to understand, but it was actually frighteningly simple. The progression took you from silly motive that shouldn’t convince anyone at all to friend dead in horrible lack of fanfare to other friend dead in gruesome spectacle. Rinse, repeat. The killing game was nothing if not formulaic.

You watched the progression march past time and time again, friends dying all according to plan. It was clear as day how fate’s hands puppeteered you, and yet the others refused to see the pattern, claimed not to feel the grip of inevitability tight around your throats. One day, one of your four last friends in the world proclaimed one too many times that hope would prevail because your friendship was too strong for any more killings to happen. In that moment, something deep inside you—all the way past the stifling layers of calm you had swaddled your soul in—snapped.

When you came to your senses, you were the last one alive.

Which is not to say that you don’t remember it, or that you didn’t think it through, or that you didn’t have your reasons. Those reasons started the night of the final trial, though at the time you had expected there to be more. You returned to your room from the trial grounds, too devastated and furious to speak to any of the traitors around you that had let this happen, had let this go on so long.

It must have been a weakness of the spirit, you thought, an inability in the others to be as forcibly calm and tightly controlled as you kept yourself, that led this to happen. Instead of recognizing the dire truth of the situation and doing something about it, the others all hid behind platitudes of how surely it was over now. Surely everyone believed in friendship and hope too much for it to go on. They ignored the danger in their own and each other’s hearts, pretending not to be the ticking time bombs that they were deep down, and instead of warning anybody they painted over the timers with smiley faces.

You lay in bed that night and stared at the ceiling, clutching your chest and thinking about the last blackened--the love of your short teenage life. He hadn’t succumbed to inevitability like the others. He had resisted, shed the useless hand-wringing and fought to end the killing game. He thought he’d had the mastermind cornered in his trap—if only he had trusted you with it. You were still too closed-off for him, even after all that time together; you knew that, but you were trying. You could have helped. He explained afterwards that he hadn’t wanted to make you an accomplice or put you in harm’s way, but he should have, ought to have.... 

It was too late by then, of course. All you could do was promise that you would find the mastermind for him and end it, clutching desperately to his hands as Monokuma continued to monologue about how he had prepared a very special punishment for the only boy you had ever loved.

That night was when it occurred to you. You knew _you_ weren't the mastermind. And if it wasn't you, that meant someone else had to be, by process of elimination. And they were still alive, because Monokuma was still going, right? So the more people were taken out at once, the likelier it was that the mastermind would be one of them.

As for being caught and convicted as the blackened? Well, the thing about this kind of killing game is that as it goes on, there are fewer people to vote for in a trial, and therefore a higher chance of everyone getting the correct answer. At the same time, there are fewer people one would have to kill at once to win.

There was really no reason for you not to kill them all in one fell swoop.

So you did. It wasn't even that difficult, not as difficult as you thought it would be. The whole time weapons had been everywhere, just waiting to be used, thanks to Monokuma. It was unnerving to think about how you could really have done it at any time. You found a bat, plus a knife as a backup. You knew your way around both well enough; no sense getting something you didn’t know how to use.

You killed the first two people quickly, so they had no suspicions whatsoever. You didn't even see the first one's face as you killed her. You hit her from behind, checked her pulse to make sure, and left her there. Easy as that. The second one looked around at just the right time for you to watch him die. You paused afterward only for long enough to take a few deep breaths.

But you had to keep moving. You didn't bother hiding evidence or coming up with a convoluted plan to disguise the crimes. You only had to take out three people to make a trial impossible. It was better to act fast than create some kind of trick and wait until everyone was on guard and gathered for an investigation.

Your third kill was the sharpest person in the bunch. She suspected something the moment she saw you, but you were quicker. By then you had the hang of murder: move fast, hit hard, control your shaking hands. All that time forcing yourself to be calm bore its horrible, rotten fruit in the collision of bodies and floorboards.

The fourth was different. After all, you didn’t need to kill him to win, but you did anyway. He’d heard the third one scream too, so he knew what was happening. He put up a better fight than the smart girl had.

“You don’t have to do this,” he had said, facing you down. “It’s not too late.”

“You’re the last one left,” you replied, watching with some kind of dark amusement as the blood drained from his face. “So I’d say it’s pretty damn late, actually.”

“All of us? Why?” he demanded. The knife, you thought, for this one—it would be too difficult to hit hard enough and get the angle right with the bat if he was fighting you. The knife gave you a better chance of getting a lethal blow. “Just to win?”

“That, and to end the game.” You threw the bat down and kicked it far behind you, then planted yourself firmly between him and it so he wouldn’t get hold of it without a knife between his ribs.

“What, you think I’m the mastermind?”

You pulled your knife out of your pocket. “Only one way to find out.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Your little boyfriend wouldn’t have wanted this, you know.”

His death was not as quick as the others, but you hadn’t felt so bad about it after that.

And just like that, you were done, catching your breath as you stood over his corpse. All the candidates for mastermind were eliminated. Gruesome, yes; drastic, perhaps; but you had ended the game once and for all. The nightmare was over. 

Except Monokuma didn't stop.

He was there, out of nowhere, and you were so shocked and woozy from the adrenaline comedown that you barely heard any of his usual wacky routine. Monokuma was there. He was there, and chattering away, something cheeky about how grisly all that was, and oh god you _failed_. There’s someone still out there doing this. You killed your friends for nothing. Oh god.

When you managed to tune back in, swaying on your feet, Monokuma was congratulating you on winning. Your prize was offered to you—your freedom, plus obscene amounts of money. Of course, you already had that. Even if you didn’t, you would never again have a life untouched by trauma and murder. You didn’t even have to stop and think about your decision. No, you didn’t _want_ a life beyond the killing game. You knew a new game was brewing, led by the same mastermind, so you demanded a different prize: the chance to risk your tainted life a second time to finish them off. 

Your wish was granted with only too much delight. You were promised a pair of survivor’s perks to give you a sporting chance and knocked out with sleeping gas. The last thought you had in the school that had been your prison for the last month was that you hoped your sisters could forgive you.

In the time you are given to prepare for the next game, you don’t think about the boy you had loved. You don’t think about his sly smile or his warm hands or his quiet strength. It would be unwise. You have a job to do, and anyway, your memories are going to be wiped. Will you get them back if you win this time? Probably not. So it’s pointless to waste time thinking about him when you have bigger fish to fry. The mastermind is still around, and you still have to take them down. You record your video, and leave everything to the only person you've ever been able to trust: yourself.

Your name is Rantarou Amami, and you came here to win.


End file.
